Semiconductor memory technology has enabled remarkable advances in electronic memory. Moore's law approximates the rate at which semiconductor technology advances over time, and it has been relatively prescient for about the past forty years. These advancements often involve significant changes in what constitutes a memory, or a memory cell, including the materials, structure, or circuit design of the underlying memory. But the basic function of electronic memory has stayed generally the same, despite changes in technology that have facilitated access to ever-increasing amounts of higher quality media for diverse uses.
One recent technological advance in memory technology is the solid state two-terminal memory. Solid state two-terminal memory generally includes a material having particular electronic characteristics positioned between two conductive electrodes. In the context of electronic memory, the material is generally selected to have two or more stable or semi-stable, yet distinct states. These distinct states can be attributed to a single binary bit of information (e.g., or more than a single binary bit in the case of multi-level cells capable of multiple distinct states). The capacity for a device to reliably represent at least one binary bit of information allows the device to function as a fundamental memory cell. For a two-terminal memory cell, the memory cell can be programmed to a program state or erased to a non-program state by a process applied to the two conductive electrodes.
Operation processes for two-terminal memory cells can vary significantly among different technology devices. An operation process generally refers to a program process, erase process or read process in the context of a memory cell, though other similar processes can exist (e.g., block erase, block program, line program, and so on). In light of the above, improvements to two-terminal memory cells are desired.